tiagra

I don't think I would be happy with a fake document )) German authorities don't car about maximum power, as long as the brakes are good enough to brake the car at the new theoretical max. speed. Secondly you are not allowed lower the emission stabdard of the car. E.g. an EURO2 car cannot be retrofitted with an EURO1 engine. Since the Volvo is EUROnothing anyway, you can't go wrong here )) The document by Volvo basically solves 2 problems: It legalizes the new engine weight and also shows, that the brake system is not altered and suitable for 100KW engine power. What else would I wish for? Have fun, Martin

May I share my happiness with you? ) .martin

3 sets of 11/32 ring/pinion arrived today from Jez of flyingspanners.co.uk - let the Diesel roll!!! Tnx, Jez .martin

News from Kurt of Volvo Sweden: "... sorry I can´t get you any document regarding homologation. All I do for the Swedish market is that we write that we accept change of the engine as long as the front axel load is not overload.. " Ok? .martin

Hi, I _think_ the email is wrong. Try kurt.bjorck@volvo.com instead .martin

Yes true, but I will convert to disc brake which will result in Toyota stud pattern.... so the rim is definately not stock Volvo )) A stock Toyota rim has a very shitty offset... e.g. 35 That's why I calculated with 35 in the picture above......... Plus: I want to switch to 17", because mich better tire selection there If I stick with 16", i don't have a problem at all.........

Hi Klas, the thing is: The truck will be registered in Germany, so each and every component needs TÃœV approval. IF I could cut/weld/bla rims, I'd not be thinkiong about ET35 and crap, I'd just build a 9x17ET85 rim But welding rims and stuff is illegal over here and my last chance (which I thought would still be possible) just closed YESTERDAY. So basically: No more welding within Germany. Unless you let a certfied rim manufacturer do it, whcih we also have - or resort to France, they have BOUZINAC for sure. Buuuut.... neither of them can source 9x17 hoops with proper speed/load certificate, which would be the basis to built a legal rim upon. I have been searching THE PLANET fpr 4 months now, but no chance. I can find 9x17 in the US, but they cannot certify a certain load in combination with a defined speed. They simply state load, and that's it. German TÃœV guys think that's ridiculous, since the load capacity decreases with increasing speed, but of course, nobody cares in America So here we are, thinking about stupid ET35, just because there is this DOTZ Hammada alloy rim available in 9x17ET35. In terms of usage, think of stony wash board "roads" for an extended period of time, with 4+t truck weight. Extended "a few thousand kilometers" each time, before you hit civilisation again. E.g. like that - (my g/f) on the way to Mt. Everest, Tibet 2012: Ciao, .martin

Hiya Klas, quick replies are really nice, I'd second that!! I think you should add "steering damper" on your list as #1 - it's a very cheap and easy to do upgrade and I suspect the effect to be overwhelming!! Other than that: My TGB is still somewhere south with his previous owner, as I haven't gotten around to finding a new place after moving to another city. He has lots of space and it's dry and warm for the TGB Eager to start with it........ engine is 12H-T from Toyota, fitted into the frame, but not running, yet I'd like to have 17" rims, but can only find some with ET35. That would double the scrub radius and according to your experiences I might not be happy with it.... though running only 12.5" tires could lead to almost the same overall vehicle width as are running - that's why I'm keen to know how much a steering damper would help. Apparently you don't have problems with the wheel bearings... But as in any case, you are using your TGB differently than others... most certainly also than myself. If I travel 3000km of rocky crap road in Tibet or Mongolia, fully loaded... the wear and tear is MUCH different from a few kilometers of hard offroading in the forrest. MUCH different. I broke all 4 wheel bearings and all ball joints in my syncro during the last trip to asia - just because of extended crap roads and pretty high verhicle weight. It just breaks everything. There you have the actual reason for my concerns Thanx, .martin

Hey Klas, from what I read, you are a pretty serious offroader and therefore probably have a pretty high tolerance level when it comes to on-road stability etc., right? Nevertheless, the effects you describe are pretty serious, even though you can live with them It seems to me, that your term "swept radius" is just what I described as "scrub radius", so we're on the same side here. If you really widened stock rims by 3 inches to the outside only, your ET would work out to be roughly 68mm, bringing us to a scrub radius of approx. 110mm, which is almost 1.5x over stock. I'd really like to hear your experiences, if you fitted a steering damper - that's clearly an upgrade you could use in that situation. I wonder how much it would roll back the effect of increased scrub angle, that you called "force feedback". Any plans in that direction? Maybe only temporarily for testing purposes? Thanx for you insight, very much appreciated, .martin P.S.: The width of your tires of course increases the effect greatly, when hitting obstacles on the outside. Maybe 12.5" wouldn't be that crazy then....... hm.

Hi guys... putting on different rims and tires changes quite a few things, among them is the so called "scrub radius" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_radius ). Since the stock value is not known (to me), I have drawn this little picture with the actual values for camber and KPI (kingpin inclination) from the factory service manual and the stock tire size. The result looks like that: As it looks like, the stock scrub radius is already positive - as expected for such an old car. What worries me a bit is the fact, that when increasing the track width to my likings, I'd almost double that value. Bigger tire has some effect, but since the KPI is not very big, the effect is small. Sadly. So the question is: How does it drive? Anyone running greatly increased track width? How does it run on the open road... bumpy roads...? All that under the assumption, that the wheel bearings won't mind. After talking to several race specialists I'm slowly adjusting to the fact (?), that the wheel bearings are pretty strong Thanx for your thoughts, .martin P.S.: Just noticed: The topic should be called RADIUS... not angle. Too late :>

I think the cab will be raised by 8cm, but since I need that for the G wagon power steering anyway, it's not a big sacrifice - more room for bigger tires with snowchains )

Hey darius, the 12H-T is about the heaviest engine you can get, because it is 4ltr 6cyl inline...... It weighs 362kg i think. It has been moved backwards to avoid colision with the front axle and yes, the traverse in the frame has been moved backwards about 20cm. It's not my work though, the welding on the frame incl. new engine mounts have been done by professionals - i don't even have a suitable MIG/MAG welding machine, I only have TIG

Darius: You can't change the portal gearing, as the housing is too small for a bigger upper gear. What you can change is ring/pinion in the diffs from 9/31 to 11/32. These are available from Jez/flyingspanners AS WE SPEAK as I mentioned above. Those big diesels really don't like revving too much... that's why I just ordered 3 sets for my TGB13 and I know others did aswell. So don't know whether Jez still has some left or not. 3 sets were £1140 plus shipping. Might be worth a thought... My calculation with 37" tires is 2450 rpm at 85km/h. That should be fine for the Toyota .martin

Hey, I'm looking for rim beds/hoops/outer rings or complete rims in 17" diameter and at least 9" in width. Doesn't matter which offset, stud pattern or color, but I need one thing: Some documentation about speed/load for these things. Maybe someone know some agricultural wheel manufacturer, whatever... SOMEthing. I just need the outer rings to have custom centr discs fabricated, about without proper speed/load documentation it's all useless. Unfortunately. I have found a few 9x17 manufacturers in the US, but NONE of them is able to certify load at a specific speed. They all just say "2300lbs" and that's it. Not sufficient in Europe Thanx, .martin

I still have to open up all my axles, but I'll do that anyway upon converting to 5.99 About electronics and engine: I'm running a fully electronic TDi in my syncro. For at least 170000kms now. I didn't have a single electric failure! None! You have to hook it up one time and finito. We drove 50000kms all over Asia in 2012 and the engine was running just like at home - from 0 to 5200 meters altitude, from -35 to 45 deg Celsius, tar, mud, rock, desert. You don't have to tinker with the electronics at all, because it is fully self-contained system which you simply move from one vehicle to another. The only connections to the Volvo is ignition and vacuum aswell as some temperature sensors for your dashboard. Easy as pie! I know there are so many people horribly afraid of all the evil electronics and they tend to project their own shortcomings in hooking up a simple light bulb at home onto the entire modern car industry. I think that's all complete nonsense. If you plan to take your car to 1.5m of water, then that'd be my ONLY argument to go fully mechanic. Seriously. Just do it properly and off you go! I'm btw also looking at Mercedes steering columns as the astro variant is too rare. Daniel used the rubber boot from the Vario, I already know that. The column itself is still undecided, been googling a lot lately but I guess I'll have to go to a scrapyard and check out a bunch of columns personally. W124 looked pretty nice, though I'm still into tilting the cabin as of now, which restricts the choice of column even more. Once that issue has been decided 100%, I will go look for suitable columns again Hope to stay in touch, go Toyota!

Very nice

Hi Darius, I will also go for Toyota (12H-T, though ) and with the G-power steering. I just think I will cut off the original bracket and build a new one so that the G sterring can stay all original in one piece. If i ever have to replace it, I can just put in standard Mercedes part off the shelf About the engine: If you replace it, also throw out gearbox and transfer for something you can repair and buy in other parts of the world.... plus you can change the ratios for something more suitable. (apart from chaing the axles from 1:7.1 to 1:5.99 of course). Looking forward to see your conversion in progress... .martin P.S.: The Chevy Astro van steering column really seems to fit nicely, but I'm afraid all the parts are pretty rare. Since mine will be an expedition vehicle I'd like to use some much more common parts somehow. Don't know which, yet, but hopefully Mercedes aswell? We'll see... if you have a good idea, share it P.P.S: also look into DanielL's built thread... he did it very nicely, too.

Yes I second that... we drove almost 50000km across asia in 2012 with max. speed of 85km/h without missing anything. It wasn't a TGB but now I know, that 85km/h is perfectly ok for traveling. So now for the TGB I'm calculating diff and gear ratios and the tires for exactly this speed. Since you can change the axles (ring/pinion that is - see Jez' post) in the TGB13 to 5.99, you shouldn't have a problem with any diesel!

Seriously, why would you want 12V? WHat exactly you REALLY need in 12V? Charging your mobile phone? Radio? There are 24V radios and the simple mobile phone charger could be connected via a 24->12V converter. The Mercedes Diesel Engine has nothing special which would prevent you from converting it to 24V, yes there even have been 24V versions originally so you can get the parts. It's just the glowplugs and maybe the shutoff valve in the pump! 24V has some major advantages: Less cable = MUCh cheaper. Especially when buying things like 220V converter, the 24V really begin to make sense. Also in terms of electric winches - double voltage is perfect! So I would go the other way around and keep it 24V as much as possible. Mine will be converted to Toyota engine, and I will keep it 24V for sure! Have fun, seems like we'll have several expedition buid threads going on in the near future! ) Ciao, .martin

Right... but it basically doesn't matter whether you tap U, V or W - it's all the same

No, because "worn" is not specific enough But imagine... your pulley has 150mm in diameter... with a REALLY worn belt you probably sink down to 148mm diameter on the crankshaft. The alternator probably has 80mm pulley, which might reduce to 78mm with a worn belt. What does that tell you? The RPM is calculated by alternator_impulses * alternator_pulley_diameter / crankshaft_pulley_diameter. In this example e.g 5000 * 80/150 = 2666,66RPM. imagine the same 2666,666RPM with worn pulleys: 2666,66 * 148/78 = 5060 impulses. That's a difference of 1,2%. Firstly, I don't think the belts will wear out THAT much, secondly 1.2% can't even be read from an anlogue RPM meter. Suppose you have a 80mm VDO Viewline RPM meter... mybe from 0 to 6000 RPM, over a course of 300 degrees. 1.2% on this scale... 300°/360°*80mm*pi()*0,012=2,51mm. I suppose that is the thickness of the dial My guess: Forget it P.S.: If you buy only 52mm RPM meter, it's 1,5mm

You can adjust that on the RPM meter. If you couldn't, you'd have to built a special RPM meter for every configuration and each and every car.

And if it doesn't, open it up and solder the W connection to one of the diodes (doesn't matter which one) - possibly with a fuse. That should do it Like I did here (This is a BOSCH generator of the newer kind, but it doesn't matter): Note: There is "full power" on these diodes, so a fuse or possibly a 5-10k resistor (depending on the sensitivity of your RPM counter) is advisable. I didn't do it, as you can see.... Ciao, .martin

We will see... it looks pretty big to me

In case anybody wants to convert to tiltable cabin aswell, I have found super heavy duty Icevo cabin locks, brand new, dirt cheap: http://www.militaerbestaende-schult.de/KFZ-Ersatzteile/Verriegelung-Fahrerhaus-IVECO.html I have ordered mine already .martin